Gaming Hard Drive dead :( (clicking)

[zidane_genome]

I have a 500Gig MyBook World edition (SATA hard drive in a network enclosure)

I just got the Click of death

I plug it in, and it whirrs up, click click click click click click click click click, spins down... spins up, click click... over and over...

I have it in the freezer now, hoping that I can at least get some data off, as it was almost full... yes, almost 500gig of data...

And before anyone starts yelling at me about backing up data, this WAS my backup drive!

I'm looking for a good price on a 500gig or larger drive... hopfully in a new network enclosure, just hook it up to my router, and all my computers, and xbox can see it to share files from it.

If anyone knows of any other wivestales on how to fix the click of death other than the freezer trick or the whack trick, please please let me know... I have so much I can't lose... every rom, photos from the last 5 years, over 300 movies, and that's just my stuff... my wife has all her school work backed up, as well as her music collection!

 

[PettingZoo]

Try going to a computer repair shop?

 

[air2004]

you could try removing it from the housing and installing it into your desktop to see if windows atleast recogonizes it , as for saving the data cant help ya there.... external drives are cheap you can pick up a new WD 500 gig for like $90. The other thing you can try is hook up to your computer pop your windows disk in and boot from cd , take the installation up to the point where windows asks where you want to install that way you can see if windows is seeing the drive.

 

[cory1492]

Bleh, hope the freezer trick helps you out. If it was a board failure, I'd suggest finding another of the same drive and swapping the board across but in this case it sounds like a head problem. You might want to look into that anyway, plug your drives model into google and see if anyone else is reporting similar failures, see if anyone has tried a controller swap on it.

There is also the absolute last resort Redneck Fix (well, unless you have a clean room)... read some of the comments there as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWR34wKBNS0
Seeing some rumblings about spinrite and DFT (fitness test), and dropping the drive flatly from varying heights.

And of course, some wikipedia stuffs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Click_of_death#Hard_disk
Which suggests to me a controller might be responsible.

If you are gonna use a networked enclosure for backups and have it running more than in short bursts (ie: so you can access files all the time) you should look into getting a network enclosure that supports RAID 1 or 3 - if a single disk fails you don't lose anything (it's what they do on servers these days, I'm told.) Drives are only meant to last a certain number of hours of spin time before they fail, it'd be interesting to see the SMART stats of your drive.

Again, wish you the best of luck - I dread the day a drive fails on me (and I know it's not if, but when) as I'm usually far behind in making backups of my data to removable media.

 

[zidane_genome]

I usually have it running 24/7, and just to be on the safe side, since I noticed the first day i had it that it runs hot, I have 2 old PC fans running on either side to get good airflow to keep it cool...

I had it tucked away out of sight behind my Entertainment Stand, and it ran perfectly for so long...

Almost 2 years now... why'd it have to fail now!

PS: I only have laptops, and I can't find my SATA2USB adapter since I'm in the middle of moving, so I can't try that right now. Please, everyone pray to the great computer geek in the sky for me... I really need the data on this drive!!!

 

[cory1492]

Is it even spinning up, or is it just clicking? If it's not spinning up at all then it might be the bearings (redneck fix may come in handy then, see the edit in my previous post.)

Most drives are rated by the manufacturer for 10,000 hours spin time, if your enclosure didn't put the drive to sleep when it wasn't being accessed that amounts to around 17,520 hours of spinning at 2 years... cudos to the extra cooling...?

 

[zidane_genome]

yea, it spins up, clicks a bunch of times, then spins down...

it's a Western Digital MyBook World Edition, so yea, when it wasn't accessed for a period of time, it would put it in "sleep" mode, then wake it up when I needed to access it...

I really want my movies back, haha... only reason I got an xbox(1) was to softmod it with XBMC to watch my movies from my big screen in the living room!

 

[cory1492]

Golden Rule of consumer electronics:
It Will Fail At The Worst Possible Time (Or 10 Minutes After The Warranty Expires, Whichever Is Least Convenient.)
and, after you replace it
They Will Release A Better Version.

I chucked a 120G into my xbox, and dump/FTP shows onto it periodically. The only reason I got an xbox, too

I for one try to stay well away from WD these days, every drive I've had from them has wound up with issues (not failing, but clicking, vibrating, squeeking - noises that shouldn't come from a hard drive, even though the ones I'm talking about still work.)

 

[zidane_genome]

haha... don't I know about the warranty thing! my TV's main board fried out 3 days after the 1 year warranty... thank god I'm good in photoshop... forged the living hell out of the recipt... they sent me out a new main board, and had a repair guy come to the house to replace the board for me, all for free! haha!

shame that the HD is 2 years old, and WD only offers 30 days support

 

[cory1492]

trying to find some info on your drive, but it's not easy (seems there are a lot with IP issues and the box itself, but no one mentions the specific hard disk serial and such), "Western Digital MyBook World Edition" is more about the package/enclosure than the physical hard drive they used inside it (it'd be something like "WD5001AALS" or "WD5000AAKS".)

Anyway, I'm off, good luck again and do look into giving it a good bash upside the case if all else fails - I for one have lost count of the things I've fixed by a strategic application of the sledge hammer approach.

 

[zidane_genome]

Thanks...

I've already beat it like a lonely man at a strip club... like a red headed step child... like a $2 street walker... and what ever other sayings you can think of...

It was FROZEN, and still click of death... gonna see about taking it apart in the next few days, once I get moved in, and hopefully will get it working again, or at least get a replacement drive, and start my collections over

 

[Mewgia]

haha... don't I know about the warranty thing! my TV's main board fried out 3 days after the 1 year warranty... thank god I'm good in photoshop... forged the living hell out of the recipt... they sent me out a new main board, and had a repair guy come to the house to replace the board for me, all for free! haha!

shame that the HD is 2 years old, and WD only offers 30 days support

I got my WD drive replaced after having it for about a year and the website says that most drives have a 3-year warranty, where did you get the 30-day figure from?

 

[Canonbeat234]

Seagate is better just to let you know. >.>

 

[Minox]

haha... don't I know about the warranty thing! my TV's main board fried out 3 days after the 1 year warranty... thank god I'm good in photoshop... forged the living hell out of the recipt... they sent me out a new main board, and had a repair guy come to the house to replace the board for me, all for free! haha!

shame that the HD is 2 years old, and WD only offers 30 days support

I got my WD drive replaced after having it for about a year and the website says that most drives have a 3-year warranty, where did you get the 30-day figure from?

There's a sticker on the box it comes in where it says that there's only 30 days support, but on that sticker it also says that the warranty is 3 years:

He must've interpreted it wrong.

 

[zidane_genome]

I meant the 30 day SUPPORT period... I don't have the original box anymore.

I'm checking the WD support pages to see what I can do, but I doubt I'll get my data back

Checked BestBuy, and I can buy a new 500gig drive for under $100...

 

[Strider]

And before anyone starts yelling at me about backing up data, this WAS my backup drive!

I don't mean to rub it in.. but it seems you didn't get that concept right. If it were a backup, you'd still have the primary data source.

 

[jpref]

tigerdirect was running 1.5 tb drives for 160$ cdn. i picked one up and seems to be doing fine.

 

[zidane_genome]

I can RMA the drive until 7/4/2010, so I can get the drive replaced, but not my data...

cries

Funny how you have to back up your backups, then back up the backups of the backup just to have everything safe... but what happens if both backups fail?? AH!!! too many backups!!

You need like 800 copies of one file just to be sure you have it!

Posts merged

And before anyone starts yelling at me about backing up data, this WAS my backup drive!

I don't mean to rub it in.. but it seems you didn't get that concept right. If it were a backup, you'd still have the primary data source.

I lost the primary source of the data when my desktop decided to fry itself one day... processor half melted, MoBo was arching, and the hard drive... well, lets just say they don't call it Magic Smoke for nothing...

 

[Strider]

I lost the primary source of the data when my desktop decided to fry itself one day... processor half melted, MoBo was arching, and the hard drive... well, lets just say they don't call it Magic Smoke for nothing...

Oh, sorry about that. Good luck on getting your data back (no sarcasm)!